Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to computer display systems, and more particularly to color display systems with the ability to associate information being displayed with the colors used to display it. The invention is a method which allows a user of a computer program to specify information, such as operations or data characteristics and values, by means of a selected color entered into a text data field.
Description of the Prior Art
Computer display systems have used color for highlighting information on a display screen. Some systems have given the user the capability of switching between combinations of color for background and foreground entries. A good example of this approach is found in some word processors. These systems provide an initial profile display that provides two boxes that display the background color and the foreground color. The user presses a function key to interactively change the foreground color selections until a desired color appears. Then the user can use another function key to select a background color in a similar way. Using this procedure, the user can select the colors that best meet their personal tastes.
Display color coding has also been used in display systems by using an internal header to a data stream specifying such information as what color to set the background. The data stream is interpreted by the color display signal processor, and the background color is displayed as specified. A disclosure of this technique is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,284, to Juso et al., issued Mar. 6, 1980.
Another usage of color in conjunction with display technology is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,233,601, to Hankins et al., issued Nov. 11, 1980. This invention pertains to compressing the data stream being sent to a raster display by indicating transitions from one color to another by a color key. This technique uses codes to designate conditions where colors change and codes to indicate how far a color should span on the display. Employing this technique, significant savings in the amount of data stored to represent an image on a raster display can be realized.
Another approach employing color to communicate information to a user is disclosed in Lippman et al., "Color Word Processing", IEEE Computer Graphics and Architecture, June 1985, pp. 41 to 46. The word processor disclosed in the Lippman et al. article uses various colors to indicate deletions that were made while a document was created. Each time the document was saved, the revisions for that session were saved with the color attribute associated with the revisions. Then if the user wanted to undo or back out of a revision, this could be accomplished using a function key selection and positioning the cursor on the color of the revision level that was desired.
All of the techniques discussed so far have one thing in common. They are all output techniques for conveying information to a user.